Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Education Programs topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Rotolo Middle School highlights ‘Red Carpet Reads’ reading incentive
Summary
Rotolo Middle School staff described a long-running incentive program that curates diverse titles, increases reading participation and builds student reading identities through class and library activities.
Rotolo Middle School staff told the Batavia USD 101 Board of Education on Jan. 21 that the school’s long-running Red Carpet Reads program has expanded student engagement by supplying shared book lists, in-class reading time and schoolwide incentives.
The Learning Resource Center director at Rotolo, Dr. Diana Wolfe, said the program — running annually since 2007 — pairs a curated list of “highly engaging diverse books” with grant funding and a partnership with the Batavia Public Library to supply multiple copies so students can discuss titles and use them in class. "Reading is a social activity," Dr. Wolfe said.
Dr. Nikki Woodruff, an 8th-grade language-arts teacher at Rotolo, and Wolfe described classroom structures that give students independent reading time and credit for books read in class while also allowing students to earn prizes through library and classroom competitions. Wolfe said one team, 8-1, read 561 books so far this school year.
Wolfe and Woodruff said the program encourages students to try authors outside their comfort zone and to see themselves as readers. Wolfe gave one example of a student who, after reading Refugee by Alan Gratz, asked for more titles by the author. The presenters said the program’s combination of teacher buy-in, library outreach and incentives helps sustain reading identities and peer discussion.
Rotolo staff recommended continuing the partnerships and grant support that make multiple copies of the curated lists available and said they will keep using weekly announcements and displays to sustain momentum.
